ChemEng's Account talk...

Sort by newest Sort by date
C

ChemEng

Active member
I am new to tracking daily markets with my TSP, but have been lurking, reading, and researching for quite some time. (For what its worth, Im 26yo FERS GS-12 investing 15%.)

Today I was 100% S fund and enjoyed a moderate return.

Tomorrow I am shifting 100% C fund anticipating good returns from DuPont and BP. My MACD spreadsheet also shows C on the cusp of a Bullish moving average crossover. Hopefully that will show itself more tomorrow as well...

One thing I am not certain about is the strategy behind IFT percentages. Can anyone explain their rational behind how they split their IFT percentages? I can understand IFTs that leave a percentage in the G to protect it, but I dont understand the strategies/decision rules behind C/S/I fund mixes. Anyone got any pointers or articles that could help me out?
 
Last edited:
ChemEng,
Welcome to the board the more the merrier. Your question is a good one. This is obvious, but some change their allocations via IFT from one fund to another because there are indicators that may give them a better chance to progress in another fund or funds. Some moves may be to avoid a possible loss by moving to a fund that may or is more likely to gain. Just how this is determined is another matter. Some have systems or claim to have systems that if followed should give them a better probability of gains or higher gains. Moving averages, long term or short term trends, candle sticks, a toss of a coin, going long term, going short, playing bounces, rebounds, whatever. They all have one thing in common, none of them can predict what the market is going to do day to day with any kind of regularity. Watch how the leaders (and the laggers) are doing on the Weekly Tracker, we can learn from them all. The best thing to do is the best you can do. Lots of knowledge out there and on this board, keep digging and when you hit pay dirt, PLEASE let me in on it. If I can help you in any way just let me know. OH No, NO see the below!!:D
Norman
 
Chem, I split allocation to spread the risk. When my level of confidence is high, you may see me go 100% to a certain fund. When I think the market will move forward, but I'm not sure which fund, I'll spread my allocation across C,S,I. I do look at the slope of the moving average in order to determine which fund is gaining the quickest and I may also allocate heavier based on that slope. Hope that helps, good luck with the investments.
 
FundSurfer -- What you are saying makes sense. Just for grins I calculated the correlations between the C, S, and I fund for the last 3 years. To my surprise, all 3 funds are almost perfectly correlated. (C&S~.99, S&I~.98, C&I~.97) This definately supports your strategy for spreading allocations if you "generally" expect a move...

Still learning... Thinking I may need to evaluate shorter term correlations as another analysis tool to help hedge some of my IFTs.
 
ChemEng said:
...........
Tomorrow I am shifting 100% C fund anticipating good returns from DuPont and BP. ..........
Click to expand...
Welcome ChemEng,
FYI - BP makes up 2.18% of the I fund.
* Source tsp.gov - I Fund sheet
 
Gilligan -- Thanks for the info... Still learning... I need to put a list of the large players by the funds they are in to help track the major players for the fund.

I think that I will stick with 100% in C. MSN is reporting this morning positive returns for US Steel, AT&T, MCDs, and 3M. Pretty strong indicators I suppose of a decent response. Well know after the close...
 
Another dumb question...

How are the fund prices calculated? Is it based on the magnitude of the change or the percentage?

The reason that I ask is that the S&P had the greatest % gain today at 0.63%. However, when you look at the gains the funds made today, the C fund gained less than the S fund.

Whats going on here? Is there a reference or guide to how this is calculated?
 
Hrrmmm... I guess I misclicked or misread somewhere... It happens... Not to mention I was a wee bit distracted last night when I was selected for a promotion to a GS13. :)

At any rate... I figured out how the values are calculated:
NewPrice=ClosePrice*(1+%gain)

At least that equation worked for the C and S funds gain yesterday.
 
One more question IFTs... Bear with me please as I know Ive been asking alot...

Monday night I put an IFT to change from 100%S to 100%C. Since that was before 1200 Tuesday, it would be effective COB Tuesday. I recieved an email that said this:

Transfer of 100% S fund@$16.63 to 100% C fund@$13.91 has been completed.

This kind of suprised me because I was expecting to trade out of the S fund at $13.83 instead of $13.91. (Im not really complaining in this case, because of the higher returns.)

This adds a whole new layer of difficulty to the trading issue. I had the mentality that I was trying to trade into the fund that was going to increase that day. But given this information, it appears that I should be trading into the fund that is going to increase tomorrow.

Is this correct?

Additionally, the tspworksheet does not account for this "gain/loss" for this lag. It seems that the percent gain should be calculated on the ending price of the fund you are leaving, not the gaining price of the fund you are moving into.

Given this transaction listed above, the tspworksheet says I have a 2.83% gain since 21JUL05. (Thats when I started using the worksheet.) The first 2.23% was gained in the S fund on 24JUL06. But it is saying that I gained 0.58% because of the IFT into C fund that was effective yesterday. The problem is I sold my S fund at the price it was on 25JUL06 and have not created any C fund gains at all because I bought it at the 25JUL06 price.

That doesnt make sense to me.
 
ChemEng said:
Monday night I put an IFT to change from 100%S to 100%C. Since that was before 1200 Tuesday, it would be effective COB Tuesday. I recieved an email that said this:

Transfer of 100% S fund@$16.63 to 100% C fund@$13.91 has been completed.

This kind of suprised me because I was expecting to trade out of the S fund at $13.83 instead of $13.91. (Im not really complaining in this case, because of the higher returns.)
Click to expand...
The prices you listed were COB Tuesday prices. Did you think you'd get Monday prices?

ChemEng said:
This adds a whole new layer of difficulty to the trading issue. I had the mentality that I was trying to trade into the fund that was going to increase that day. But given this information, it appears that I should be trading into the fund that is going to increase tomorrow.

Is this correct?
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on when you trade. I usually trade in the hour before the deadline. I usually want to trade out of a fund I think will go down tommorrow into a fund that will go up tommorrow. You put your IFT into the system after noon so your trade is not effective till COB the next day. If you put in your IFT request before noon, your trade is effective at the COB of that day.
ChemEng said:
Additionally, the tspworksheet does not account for this "gain/loss" for this lag. It seems that the percent gain should be calculated on the ending price of the fund you are leaving, not the gaining price of the fund you are moving into.

Given this transaction listed above, the tspworksheet says I have a 2.83% gain since 21JUL05. (Thats when I started using the worksheet.) The first 2.23% was gained in the S fund on 24JUL06. But it is saying that I gained 0.58% because of the IFT into C fund that was effective yesterday. The problem is I sold my S fund at the price it was on 25JUL06 and have not created any C fund gains at all because I bought it at the 25JUL06 price.

That doesnt make sense to me.
Click to expand...

I would guess that you are not entering the dates and percentages on the correct lines. A bunch of people make that mistake. I'd have to see the spreadsheet to be sure. The spreadsheet calculations are correct if the data entered is correct. I argued with Tom for a week before I figured out that he and I thought about the entry of data in different ways.
 
ChemEng said:
Additionally, the tspworksheet does not account for this "gain/loss" for this lag. It seems that the percent gain should be calculated on the ending price of the fund you are leaving, not the gaining price of the fund you are moving into.

Given this transaction listed above, the tspworksheet says I have a 2.83% gain since 21JUL05. (Thats when I started using the worksheet.) The first 2.23% was gained in the S fund on 24JUL06. But it is saying that I gained 0.58% because of the IFT into C fund that was effective yesterday. The problem is I sold my S fund at the price it was on 25JUL06 and have not created any C fund gains at all because I bought it at the 25JUL06 price.

That doesnt make sense to me.
Click to expand...

You enter the End Date of 25-Jul-06, and the closing fund prices for 25-Jul-06 in the same row. This is the final day at the old asset allocation (100% S). The new allocation (100% C) is entered in the following row of the speadsheet, with a Start Date of 26-Jul-06 and End Date marked as "Current". You enter closing fund priceseach day in the row marked "Current". Just remember the closing fund prices you enter in a row are always associated with the End Date.

I maintain the TSPTalk Weekly Tracker. I have you down at 100% C as of COB on 25 July, effective starting 26 July. Your initial account entry of 24 July was posted at 8:42 pm so I cannot count you at 100% S on 24 July.
 
Stick with that C fund - it's due for greatness. IMHO only - I'm known as the C-man by some of our participants. You have a very aggressive position.
 
I got the spreadsheet to work... Although it is going to take some adjusting to how I approach it. Its just not immediately intuitive to me that thats how it should work.*shrug* I may just repoint all Fund Return columns a row above the current row to get it to work like I think it should...

I switched back into stocks effective tonight @ 30C/30S/40I. I think that there is another day of gains-however small-for the F fund today as the mixed trading emotions from yesterday carry over. With any luck on Friday there will be a small rally and Ill be positioned well...

BTW... Is there any analysis that shows the trends of Friday/Monday trading? Is there any correlation between Fridays or Mondays as either rally or lock-in earning days? If there is anything like that, I would appreciate sharing it!
 
About a year ago a member (was it Rod or Mlk_man or me -- can't remember) did a days of the week analysis. I know Rod traded using the days of the week method for awhile. Anyway, Mondays were down more often than up, thus Friday's would be a good day to get out if using this method.

I actually still use this in my system. I have a slight bias toward being out over the weekend. I think the reason for this is that people may have more time to watch the news over the weekend. The news is negatively biased cause that's what sells. There is also more time for bad news to be made around the world over a weekend versus a weekday. JMHO.

(It's probably time to do the analysis again - any volunteers?)
 
Im glad that I held strong to my IFT as I was inches away from cancelling it into 100% G after seeing how the markets were before noon. I gained 1-2 cents in the F fund and was able to get the C/S/I position when C/S had a bad day.

As I see it, there are 4 courses of action for tomorrows IFT:
1. If all funds go up, then IFT into G/F.
2. If all but 1 are up, then IFT 75% into G/F and 25% into the one thats down.
3. If all are down, hold position. (possibly shift %s around C/S/I)
4. If funds are stagnant, then hold position.

Im not sure about COA4 though. It leaves me exposed to the overbought position that STO is indicating for the funds. I may also switch into G/F to protect that gain from today. *shrug*

Thoughts? Comments?
 
ChemEng said:
Thoughts? Comments?
Click to expand...

Chem,
Well my strategy was to buy low on the correction. So I'm in for a while. I didn't plan on the M.E. crisis.
IMHO we should muddle through it, unless it starts spreading. Need also to watch energy (oil).
To me it's a patience matter.
I don't plan to be jumping around!
Rgds
Spaf
 
I lost alot of money on the correction. (I was 100% in S then.) Uggg... Its not a good feeling to get a negative % return on the Q2 report from TSP. Especially when it includes my contributions. Double uggg...

My strategy right now is pretty simple:
1. Buy in a fund in the daily swings that it is down. You can get a reasonable feel for how the market is going to perform by the noon deadline. (Days like today aside. :))
2a. If another fund goes down and the previous day's fund goes up/stays same the following day, move into the new one.
2b. If the previous day's fund goes down, put more money into it.
2c. If they all go up, then move into G/F.

Its certainly not sophisticated as other strategies--but this one is simple enough for me to execute with minimal amounts of research required in addition to my normal daily reading... I just hope that Ill be able to make enough of the smaller gains to compensate from not investing larger %s at a time.

Well see how it works out...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

TommyIV
  • Article Article
TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up - Optimism with Caution
Replies
1
Views
297
tsptalk
tsptalk
tsptalk
  • Article Article
TSP Talk - Now what?
Replies
2
Views
225
Cactus
Cactus
tsptalk
  • Article Article
TSP Talk - The seasonal advantage for stocks has a few more days
Replies
0
Views
160
tsptalk
tsptalk
tsptalk
  • Article Article
TSP Talk - Stocks fall as bond yields continue to move higher
Replies
0
Views
88
tsptalk
tsptalk
tsptalk
  • Article Article
TSP Talk - Where is the October volatility?
Replies
0
Views
195
tsptalk
tsptalk
Back
Top